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Real Places
Corbeil, North Bay, Sturgeon Falls, Garden Village, & Nipissing First Nation are situated along Highway 17 in Northern Ontario, near Trout Lake and Lake Nipissing. If you follow Hwy 17 from west to east, you pass Sturgeon Falls and Garden Village on your way to the First Nation—which is just outside of North Bay, and about twenty minutes from Corbeil. Lynn lived in Corbeil from the 80s until 2015, and this area figured prominently in FBorFW.
Corbeil, Ontario.
Corbeil is the small, rural community outside of North Bay, Ontario that Lynn called home. Her studio was also located in Corbeil, which is approximately a twenty-minute drive from North Bay. Here you can see an aerial view of the former FBorFW studio on the shores of scenic Trout Lake.
North Bay, Ontario.
It's a friendly city of roughly 53,000 people that's home to most of Lynn's staff, and features lots of natural beauty. North Bay is also home to Nipissing University, where Liz and Candace went to school. In these strips, you see the front of the University building as well as images of the student residences.
Nipissing University
Lynn visited Nipissing University and toured the grounds to get a feel for campus life. She based her drawings on photographs she took of the buildings and university surroundings.
Gulliver's Quality Books & Toys, North Bay.
Lilliput's Bookstore is well-known to FBorFW fans as the place where Elly once worked, before she bought the business herself when owner Lily Petrucci retired. Lilliput's is based on Gulliver's Quality Books and Toys, which is owned by Lynn's friend Suzanne Brooks. Lynn attends regular book signings at Gulliver's, which is a fixture in North Bay's downtown. Below is a photo of Lynn with the store staff at a 2007 signing. Visit them online at gulliversbookstore.com
Sturgeon Falls:
While she was attending school in North Bay, Elizabeth spent time "practice teaching" at Our Lady of Sorrows school in Sturgeon Falls as part of her teacher training at Nipissing University. In this strip, we see Liz and colleague Greta driving along Highway 17 from North Bay toward Sturgeon Falls.
Garden Village:
In these strips, Greta and Liz go from Our Lady of Sorrows in Sturgeon Falls to Garden Village, where they meet Denny Goulais of Garden Village Confectionery. Denny was a real person; a well-loved member of the First Nation who operated the little convenience store until his passing.
While talking to Greta and Denny, Liz expresses her desire to teach somewhere remote. The fictional community of Mtigwaki was created by Lynn and some of her friends from Nipissing First Nation and is based loosely around life in this area. See our Real People section and our Mtigwaki section for more!
Nipissing First Nation:
The population of Nipissing First Nation includes people of Ojibwe and Algonquin descent, who as members of the Anishinabe people have occupied the area they call N'Biissing (little water) for around 9400 years.
When Lynn illustrated the pow-wow strips that took place in Mtigwaki, she drew on her experiences at the gathering held every Labour Day weekend on Nipissing First Nation. These two photos were taken on the pow-wow grounds, which are considered a sacred place by the Anishinabe people.
London, Ontario:
When it came time to pursue his higher education, Mike went to London to attend Western university. Lynn initially didn't tell people that Mike was going to university in London, Ontario - as a joke, she wanted people to think he'd be leaving for the UK!
London is a city with a population of around 475,000 located midway between Toronto and Detroit, Michigan.
Toronto, Ontario:
This is the city around which the FBorFW characters live. It's Canada's metropolis and is the capital city of Ontario. Yonge St., once considered to be the longest street in the world, runs through Toronto and is home to many landmarks including Sam the Record Man - the recently-closed, landmark music store famous for its "spinning record" signage. You can see Dee and April driving past Sam's in this strip, on their way to the Patterson family home in Milborough.
In this strip, April and her band are visiting Toronto in order to complete in a "Battle of the Bands". You can see the Toronto skyline in the first panel, including the famous CN Tower which is pictured.
Winnipeg, Manitoba:
Lynn's sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Beth and Don Cruikshank, own the Winnipeg farm sometimes seen in FBorFW. It's the place where April has spent some summers, and where Mike and Elizabeth learned to bale hay, drive tractors and rise with the sun to do serious manual labour! Beth has often appeared in the strip as Aunt Bev; see our Real People page for more about the Cruikshank family.
Mexico:
Lynn visited Mexico in 2004, and incorporated her experiences into the strip.
These drawings are based her own experience trying to climb down the steep step pyramid at Chichen Itza, and discovering the site of a vast former marketplace.
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